NEWS ANALYSIS : Colombia Awaits Drug Lords’ Next Move : Latin America: Bombs, assassinations--or perhaps a tacit truce--could follow election of the cocaine cartels’ foe.

This nervous nation began waiting Monday for a “narco-terrorist” response to its choice of Cesar Gaviria, a hard-line opponent of violent drug lords, as the next Colombian president.

Gaviria, 43, has vowed repeatedly that the terrorist campaign by cocaine traffickers, blamed for the assassinations of three presidential candidates and the deaths of hundreds of other people, will not persuade him to make any concessions to them after he takes office in August. He won Sunday’s elections with about 47% of the vote to 24% for his closest contender, according to nearly complete returns.

Gaviria and the voters have spoken. Now, Colombians wonder apprehensively, what will the drug lords do?

One scenario: They strike soon with the explosion of a powerful bomb or the assassination of a public figure.

Another: They hold their fire in a tense interregnum, allowing both the government and themselves to review strategy.

Rodrigo Losada, a political analyst with a Bogota research institute, fears the first scenario.

“I think the narco-terrorists will be inclined to give a lesson to Gaviria as soon as they can, to let him know they are going to keep fighting to make him stop extradition,” Losada said. A major goal of the terrorist rampage has been to end extradition of accused traffickers to the United States for trial.

But Losada does not rule out the second scenario: “They may give Gaviria time to think and prepare his strategy, doing nothing in the meantime--but preparing some kind of action, a very resounding, notorious action, to be carried out after a while.”

Jorge Orlando Melo, director of the Institute of Political Studies at the National University, also fears dramatic action by the drug lords.

“I think they will try to do something with impact, strike a blow,” he said in an interview.

But Melo said a more promising strategy from the traffickers’ point of view would be to let the violence die down.

If the narco-terrorism stops, he speculated, Gaviria’s government might quietly respond by using extradition only sparingly, thus observing a tacit truce.

That would not please the United States, but it probably would be acceptable to most Colombians, who see extradition as questionable if not anti-nationalist.

Melo predicted that a planned constitutional assembly, approved by more than 90% of the voters Sunday, will make extradition unconstitutional anyway.

The administration of President Virgilio Barco Vargas signed for the extradition of 14 traffickers between August and January, but it has sent only one more to the United States since then. U.S. officials are asking for the extradition of 15 more who are now in custody.

The Colombian paper work was delayed because of elections, the Americans were told. Some speculate that the Colombian government preferred to keep the sensitive extradition issue in the background during the campaign.

Without extradition, important Colombian traffickers are rarely brought to justice because this country’s court system has been corrupted and intimidated by their bribes and killings.

Colombian guerrilla groups have called for constitutional reform as a condition for peace in the country. The Patriotic Alliance M-19 guerrillas, who signed a peace agreement and formed a political party this year, have made constitutional reform one of their key goals.

Political analysts say M-19 candidate Antonio Navarro’s strong third place showing in the presidential election may encourage other guerrilla groups to make peace and enter the political arena.

NEXT STEP

Colombian President-elect Cesar Gaviria will take power from Virgilio Barco Vargas on Aug. 7. The new leader is likely to invite other major political forces to join him in a broad-based government, political analysts say. That could include a role for the leftist Patriotic Alliance M-19, a former guerrilla group which gave up armed struggle to form a political opposition group. It would be the first time a leftist group has taken part in governing Colombia.